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Home My WebLink AboutSPEAKER FORMS 02-21-06CITY OF TuSTIN REQUEST TO SPEAK Providing the following Information is strictly voluntary. Only your name will appear in the official Minutes of this Meeting. The other Information may be used by staff to contact you. Please complete and submit this form to the City Clerk/Recording Secretary. AGENDA ITEM NO. ❑ PUBLIC INPUT lie IN FAVOR ❑ OR OPPOSITION ❑ TO MATTER? TODAY'S DATE NAME _ 1 H 7/ / W /N.1 /C ORGANIZATION [ tG /f ( CODE ulYk__ 7-- V CITY OF TUSTIN REQUEST TO SPEAK Providing the following information is strictly voluntary. Only your name will appear in the official Minutes of this Meeting. The other information may be used by staff to contact you. Please ,comp late and submit this form to the City Clerk/Recording Secretary. AGENDA ITEM NO. ❑ PUBLIC INPUT IN FAVOR ❑ OR OPPOSITION XTO MATTER? TODAY'S DATE - _ 0 E / i 9 NAME ��/(�i L [/�I l k -E ORGANIZATION L I^ ZIP CODE / y, -V S N f HOMEIWORK PHONE NO. E-MAIL ADDRESS (please Indicate one) Z� CITY OF TUSTIN REQUEST TO SPEAK Providing the following Information is strictly voluntary. Only your name will appear in the official Minutes of this Meeting. The other information may be used by staff to contact you. Please c�+plete andj0 this form to the c�r�f� Wen ��I itpm '. n7 pr AGENDA ITEM NO. ❑ Ity Clerk/Recording Secre ary. i _ 16 (2fia �PO�SP'P�ISr 0 PUBLIC INPUT IN FAVOR ❑ OR OPPOSITION ❑ TO MATTER? TODAY'S DATE Fe b '21 , Zb o (P NAME v VVI W\ I LA k, 1 V ORGANIZATIO I`46 � E-MAIL ADDRESS (please indicate one) I am Dana Jean and I work in the front office at LEI Patient Group Of Legal Ease, Inc. I request an agenda item addressing the legitimacy of the sting protocol used by the Tustin Police Department as an excuse to raid us. In order to truly understand the importance of these implications, we will first look to the strategy we believe was used. Second, I will show that the Tustin Police Department has simply made a huge mistake. First, all police press releases specifically said that we sold to an undercover officer who used a "bad recommendation." However, we verified all physicians through the California AMA's web -site, and we re -verified every patient recommendation by calling the doctors office, which is exactly the same policy Walgreen's pharmacy uses as well as every other dispensary in the state. Investigator John Cartwright told our manager that he was the undercover officer who had purchased from us. Being that LEI has all patient recommendations on a remote server, after the sting we reviewed our files and found that there wasn't anyone by the name of John Cartwright in our database. Normally, when police confiscate a dispensary's computers, as they did ours, the dispensary has no way to defend itself against what the police wish to claim, but this is not our case. We deduce that Officer Cartwright presented a police -quality phony ID at a doctor's office to get a recommendation issued for a phony identity, thus, technically making it a "bad recommendation." If this is correct, then the strategy of the sting was to ensure their ability to close down the dispensary, whether the dispensary operators verified the recommendation, or not. According to the press, LEI -was to be charged with "Possession, with intent to sell," but Prop215 shields dispensaries and its employees from this charge. In addition, Ll per state law, personal identity is the responsibility of the county and Orange County is out of compliance with SB420's mandate to join the California State Medical Marijuana Identification Card Program. Closing our legitimate business on the premise that we were unable to catch a phony ID has exposed the County of Orange to a possible civil suit seeking restitution for lost earnings for every day we are unfairly closed. A no -fail sting coupled with unfounded character defamation to the press has exposed the City of Tustin to a possible slander lawsuit. Additionally, all of this could have been avoided because in August of 2005, we offered Lt. Jim Peery, head of Narcotics, to tour our facility and review our verification process, which he refused. We believe that progressive law enforcement involves communication, and not battle -making. If our offer had been accepted, we could have saved the expense and waste of police resources. Thank you for your time. L Next Tustin City Council Meeting: March 6th, 7PM, 300 Centennial Way, Tustin, 92780. "PLEA TO ALLOW LEI PATIENT GROUP OF LEGAL EASE, INC. TO OPERATE DURING THE PRESENT MORITORIUM." I am Timolin Burke, manager of LEI Patient Group, and third -party advocate for the civil rights of patients in our group — rights vested by California laws: Prop215 and SB420 — to purchase legal medicine from a legal dispensary, rather than be driven to seek weaker, possibly -tainted product from drug dealers who operate out of Tustin cars on Tustin streets. This is the very threat to health and safety that these laws were enacted to spare the patient. I humbly request the council to repeal the Cease & Desist order. Then Tustin citizens can return to getting legal, quality medicine in a professional atmosphere of goodwill while the city conducts its research. Fully half of our Tustin patients are older who use it as an agent of pain control, with muscle relaxation and anti -inflammation, for arthritis, back problems and post-surgical chronic discomfort. They tell us, "Oh, thank goodness you're here, I live just down the street and now I don't have to drive to Long Beach anymore." We serve a primarily middle-class demographic, with extremes spanning all the way from paupers, to CEOs of international corporations. Those able to get to other dispensaries are doing that again, with displeasure. The Tustin patients who can't afford the gas, or who work too late to drive through traffic, or who just, plain, don't feel well enough to, will necessarily turn to local sources. As the police department found, we are a legal, legitimate business. We invite you to tour the facility. We recently hired a state -licensed security team and we seek your input and suggestions. 2-21-06 -Plea to enter agenda item: Repeal the Order! • 10 In conclusion to this point, the Cease & Desist Order has directly impinged on the health and safety of the plurality of Tustin citizens who use Medical Cannabis under doctor's order and by aegis of California law. By not repealing this Order, the City Council provides Tustin's illegal street dealers an environment in which to thrive, which is by definition deleterious to the health and safety of the greater Tustin public, for street dealers have no compunction against selling to minors. One more thing - I'd like to provide the perhaps surprising notion that LEI Patient Group is an asset to your city. Search your vision of the future — you know that eventually the Federal Government will reschedule this to the same level as other prescriptive medications. Synthetic THC has already been FDA -approved for wasting syndrome since 1985. When rescheduling occurs, our status will be like that of a specialized Walgreen's, and the Tustin City Council will be in regulatory control of what is presently the most popular dispensary between LA and San Diego. Members already tell us they come to us preferentially, even when they live closer to those cities. Yes - Tustin -steals foot - traffic from Long Beach, LA and San Diego. To this rapidly -growing market of mobile consumers with disposable income, Tustin is a destination. Every patient state-wide accesses California NORML's web -site and plans their travel accordingly. We bring good business to your town — consumers buying gas and cigarettes, eating a fine meal or grabbing a sandwich — watching a film at The Market while traffic settles down. If you expunge our dispensary from Tustin, another big dispensary will take over this demographic zone by opening in a neighboring city, a city that may not be as diligent as you, and Tustin will have no say as to how that dispensary operates. I exhort you to show your wisdom, by allowing us to remain open. Doing so preserves all your options, including that of permanent control over this inevitable phenomenon and a remarkable opportunity for Tustin's future. Thank you for your time 2-21-06 - Plea to enter al-enda item: Repeal the Order!